Quote:
Originally Posted by tryreading  That type of math has to be done by people smarter than me. But the thing is to overbuild. Having built the existing gas peaking plants is an example of that. Install more than you need to cover for the times when capacity is high and normal output is inadequate. Even keep a minimal number of the gas peaking plants operational as backup for wind turbine power and existing coal generation, etc. ...use a probability-based estimate of wind contribution during important periods, taking into account a long wind resource record, and install, for example, a 20 MW backup? In this way the utility can rely not only on the installed wind backup (gas or whatever), but on the natural diversity of outages in other units. This reasoning is roughly the justification for the ubiquitous use of the 7% spinning reserve fraction, which requires the utility to spin an additional 7% over its load. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy96/20493.pdf |
I agree with the overbuild concept. If we have multiple sources of electrical energy to choose from, we can easily pick from the least polluting. As long as the wind is blowing, we use wind generators. When the wind don't blow, we should use nuclear first, coal next. Just bear in mind that while the output of nuclear and coal plants can be varied to some extent, those type plants cannot be turned on and off as easily as gas turbine plants. It will certainly allow us to burn less coal, and gas, but it won't save the consumer much money. Having excess capacity sitting idle only saves on fossil fuel costs, all the other expenses will remain, and the more power plants we have, the more we pay.